Who’s Who in E&P A&D: SJ Resource Partners’ Sasha Gumprecht

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Sasha Gumprecht’s strategy for dealmaking is simple: build relationships.

The vice president of business development at SJ Resource Partners said she has enjoyed her recent work in Arkansas and the great people she’s met there.

“I believe I have talked with about every operator in the whole state which is largely due to the friendliness and openness of the people,” she said. “My favorite memory was cold calling a gentleman who ended up flying down the following week for a visit on his private jet to meet with our team.”

SJ Resource Partners is focused on long-lived, PDP conventional onshore assets. The company has acquires minerals in the Permian Basin and is in the process of acquiring a South Texas asset, she said.

While she enjoys meeting people, her favorite part of her job is finding the right “piece for our puzzle” for the company.

Gumprecht has worked at Houston’s SJ Resource Partners since it was founded in 2021 in partnership with the San Juan Holdings. She said the company is willing to look at alternative financing, including drillcos and farm-ins.

SJ Resource Partners looks to maintain a “delicate balance between the technical and financial” sides of an investment.

“When it comes to assessing an asset, not only are we making sure that the deal looks good financially but of equal importance we rely heavily on our technical knowledge to ensure that we will make a good return on investment,” she said.

She brings a far-flung background to her role. Growing up in Seattle in the “shadow of both active and dormant volcanoes” Gumprecht discovered an enthusiasm for geology while taking an undergraduate course at Southern Methodist University.

During her geology studies, the oil and gas industry caught her interested after taking a course given by guest lecturer and industry legend Marlan W. Downey.

“His instruction on solving problems that combined both scientific and economic analysis sparked my undivided curiosity.”

After graduation, she spent time in Russia teaching ESL courses.

“Immersed in a sea of fur hats and vodka, I discovered that I would ultimately love to combine my passions for geology and travel into a career in international oil and gas exploration.”

She added that her time abroad gave her an important perspective on Americans, who “are able to choose our own destiny through hard work and diligence, an option not given equally worldwide.”

For a road map to the A&D point person for oil companies, big private players and newer upstream companies check out Who’s Who in E&P A&D 2021.

In the decade before joining SJ Resource Partners, she worked in a broad spectrum of the industry, using her geoscience background in prospect generation and field operations and later management and software-led consulting for E&Ps ranging from small independents to supermajors.

“I have an unusual set of skills with my background with technology, management consulting, technical geoscience and a MBA, which allows me to view an asset or a deal holistically and from a broader perspective to see something in its entirety,” she said, “as opposed to having to solely rely on piecing together segments of information from other people or understanding only parts of the who puzzle.”

In her dealings with potential sellers, she often sees assets that don’t make the cut for SJ Resource Partners’ particular needs.

“But keeping those relationships is crucial to my long-term strategy,” Gumprecht said. “Sellers may not have what I need now but they could down the road.”